What started as a personal journey of a doctor turned patient morphed into a way to share what’s universal in dealing with cancer, in my case a nasty leukemia (CLL), a failed transplant and a successful clinical trial. The telling of my journey has become a journey to teach about CLL, related blood issues and all cancers. Please visit our new website http://cllsociety.org for the latest news and information. Smart patients get smart care™. If you want to reach me, email bkoffmanMD@gmail.com

Monday, December 6, 2010

Can we trust the TSA?

Honestly, this scares me as a patient with CLL. The dose may be low, but it concentrated in the skin, and those of us with CLL already have a much higher incidence of skin cancer.

You see the fact that the radiation doesn't penetrate as deep is good for the internal organs, but its effects on the skin and underlying fat are yet to be determined.

Do we trust the government who calmed our worries about Agent Orange or told us not to worry and then prevented us from suing when they allowed toxic doses of mercury in our infants vaccines or who lined up soldiers to witness radioactive blasts at a "safe distance"?

Or do we trust the scientists?

Now I admit not all physicians line up with the UCSF doctors who signed the letter, but at best, it says that it is an open question.

We are all the guinea pigs. And those of us with suppressed immune systems may be more like the canaries in a coal mine.

Seems I am going to need to get used to being groped when I travel. Adds new considerations to the question -boxers or jockeys?

5 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Consider this, how many crotches will those blue gloves grope before they are used to probe your scalp? How long will it be before something gross (bedbugs, MRSA, etc) is transmitted by those glove? While I have not formulated my response to the current TSA situation, I am of the mind to go through the millimeter wave units but not the x-ray units. Further, I will ask the TSA agent to change gloves if I am subjected to an intensive frisking and warn the agent to stay the hell away from my pacemaker (which is likely to trigger a false positive in any scanner). I have already communicated to the TSA my suggestion of a glove change for high risk people such as us.As for the TSA statement that the scanners do not store images, I say that they are evidence and will be stored until an individual is cleared.Lets face it, any bad guy worth his hummus is not going to try and breach a large airport. It will be a small one without body scanners which means all of this is a waste of time and money.TomD

I received an e-mail from a friend the other day suggesting that as most of us cannot pay the high cost of healthcare, we should just have the TSA install CAT Scans then we can go to the closest airport, pass through the scanners, and ask the TSA for a copy. I can pass through a scanner in Virginia and travel to and from California for about $700.00 but it costs $3,000 - $4000.00 to go to my local hospital and have a CAT scan. Isn't it interesting that the TSA can manage the cost to scan all of us, but hospitals need thousands of dollars per patient to do the same. The absurdity of all of this leaves me speechless. v

I'm not a scientist, nor am I a physician, but appropriate testing prior to implementation of the scanning system just seems like common sense. I don't think as a CLL patient I would want to enter one.

Very interesting and not a big surprise. As someone who was subjected to "good tonsil irradiation" in the '40's and who now has CLL, going through one of these scanners is the last thing I want to do, or will do. Thanks for posting about the UCSF letter. I will post it as well wherever I can.

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About Me

BkoffmanMD@gmail.com
A family doc and husband of 1 and father of 4 and grandfather of 3 who loves his family and his work. I live with no TV and no microwave, but wouldn't last a minute without friends, art, music, books and the beach. Hockey, good jokes and exotic travel are pretty important too. Writing, Talmud and Zen give meaning to my life. My diet is organic vegan, often raw. I hope the blog makes the load lighter and the path both safer and more fun for those who read it or are going to similar places. I want to help. I crave your comments. If you are new to the blog, check out the portrait my son Will painted (it is the first post), and my very first text post.